Catriona Morrison: World Champion. Times Four.

Catriona Morrison: ITU Duathlon World Champion 2010

Several years ago, Cat’s dad and I were chatting in Clearwater. He was marveling at the sunshine. “Scotland can be wet, windy, rainy and miserable.” he said in his thick Glaswegian accent, slapping me heartily on the shoulder, “And that is on a good day!”

Catriona Morrison trains irrespective of all that. This is a good thing, because the night before the 2010 Duathlon World Championships, the forecast was for broken clouds, scattered showers and heavy winds. It would be worse at the top of Arthur’s seat, the big climb the athletes would race up seven times.

Cat, cool as a cucumber before the race.

The rain stayed clear, but it was blowing a gale come morning. We set Cat up in one of the race tents for a warm up. Athletes from the world over buzzed about nervously outside. Cat was her usual self. Richard and I put her on the bike and set about bringing some bags over to transition.

I knew Cat was physiologically prepared. We’d spent the past 4 weeks in a Duathlon-specific, course specific training regime, and it had gone very well. She was as fast as ever, but more importantly, she was healthy. We’d spent the winter and spring carefully rehabilitating the niggles from the season before, and we’d adjusted the training program to ensure they would not return.

In the back of my mind, I was a little concerned regarding the weight of expectation she was feeling. Cat was a multiple world-champion, representing her home country, racing in her home city, after a couple of years spent as the public face of the event in the media. Her cheerful smile was everywhere: billboards, race programs, signage galore. To some extent, this race wasn’t just about her success, but about representing the hopes of the people of her homeland in a very real way.

If Catriona was having any last minute anxiety, she didn’t show it. We returned to find her reading in the saddle, cool as a cucumber. She was ready.

When the gun went off, Cat was right down to business. One of the girls tried to get away in the opening kilometer, and Cat sat comfortably in the chase pack. She’d raced enough of these to know that the first run doesn’t have much to do with the way things shook out in the end. There were bigger fish to fry, like the climb up Arthur’s Seat that needed to be repeated seven times over. This is where we would make the move that would either win the race, or reveal some very strong competition.

On the first lap of the bike, Cat sat in, getting her legs under her and feeling out the competition, but by lap two Cat had moved to the front. Richard and I and most of the family had hurried halfway up the climb to a traffic circle to get a good eyeball on things, and were there in time to see Cat attack. On the steepest part of the climb, she gave it a little bit of gas, and revealed just how close to the limit her competitors were. There was carnage in her wake. Within just another lap, the rest of the field had fallen away into small groups and Cat was left with only Levenez (FRA) on her wheel.

Cat puts Levenez in the hurt locker

By the time the second run started, Cat and her lone competitor had several minutes on the rest of the field. She’d forced Levenez to pull for the last two laps, which ensured a little bit of freshness for the run. As I saw them come past in the first kilometer of the run, Cat had already taken an 11 second lead. Walking back to the finish chute, I was just remarking to Richard how rare it is that an athlete is able to execute a race strategy so perfectly when news came from above. Cat had gotten a penalty!

Apparently, Cat had committed some sort of helmet violation in transition, and the referees gave her a stand down at the top of the hill on the first lap of the run. My jaw clenched. How much time? What kind of lead would Levenez get? We let out a collective sigh of relief as Cat came back down, having already passed Levenez again and extending her lead with every stride.Penalty or not, this race belonged to Catriona Morrison.

Cat hit the tape with a comfortable margin of victory, and I will never forget the roar of the home crowd as the Scots cheered home one of their own.

Seeing Cat smile, and her folks’ eyes well up as the flag was hoisted and the national anthem played, I silently congratulated her on a job well done. This scene is played over and over in athletic competition, and is among the most inspiring things we witness. For me, though, I would have to say that one of the most inspiring moments I’ve ever seen in sport came on lap 2 of the bike course.

I was standing behind the barricades, and two little girls, perhaps 5 and 3 years old, squeezed in front of me. The elder nudged the younger and pointed, “See her on the front? That’s Cat. She’s from here and she’s the best in the whole world!”

The younger cheered and waved her little flag. “Really?!” She asked.

“Yep.” She said, “I’m gonna do this next year.”

I wish Catriona could have been there to hear that.

Auntie Cat went *very* fast.

Joanna Zeiger: World Champion. World Record.

Joanna Zeiger: 70.3 World Champion 2009, World Record Time

It is said that the field of medicine is full of great suffering, but also the overcoming of great suffering. As a physician, I can attest to that. However, the same can be said of athletics. Triathletes put their bodies through living hell, and they do it for far less reward than athletes in other endurance sports. Win the New York City marathon, and you’ll take home a cool $130k, plus a hefty collection of endorsements. Win the Ironman 70.3 World Championships by swimming over a mile, cycling 56 miles and then running more than 13, and you’ll net roughly a sixth as much. You’ve got to love this sport to do this to yourself. You’ve got to want it for its own sake.

When I first spoke to Joanna Zeiger, I was at one of the big sports medicine meetings. I’d followed Joanna’s career with much interest over the years, and though I was expecting her call, it was still a bit of a surprise to hear her on the other end of the line. Joanna Zeiger of the inaugural Olympic triathlon, who was winning races before I was materially involved with this sport, was still hungry. “I know I can be better.” She said, “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I still love it, and I know I am capable of more. I want to win a World Championship.”

Joanna had other goals, too. However, as we got to know each other, and as I studied workout after workout and power file after power file, something began to become clear to me. It was something her husband Mark told me the first time we met, while she was hammering away in the flume pool at Kean University, where we were working to understand her heat and electrolyte problems. “Joanna is built for 70.3. It takes speed, it takes endurance, it takes brains. Joanna’s got it all.”

Through a series of events and decisions that would take too long to relate here, this became the season of the 70.3. We knew what it would take to win these races, and we built the program to do it. Joanna would go on a streak almost unheard of on the Half-Ironman circuit. A win at Eagleman. 2nd at Buffalo Springs. A win at Vineman. A win at 5430. A win at Muskoka. Joanna set personal best after personal best. As we came into the fall, Joanna never lost focus. Nose to the grindstone, she was setting PR’s in workouts now.

“I can go faster, Phil.” She’d say. “There’s another gear there. I can feel it.” I’d agree. Then, we’d agree that we weren’t going to test the outer limits. Not yet. We would be patient. As Jack Daniels has said, you don’t leave your race on the training track. I knew now there were few people who could touch her. Still, you need the perfect storm. You need the combination of conditions, training and tapering, nutrition, and everything else that goes into the ultimate performance. You can never afford to start counting chickens in this game. Her competition was every bit as good, and every bit as hungry.

On the morning of the race, the dawn creeping on, we sat on the concrete wall that fronts Clearwater Beach. The support crew had been assembled. Joanna’s parents Karen and Bob, Mark, her manager Amy Stanton, and myself. None of us had slept well, and though we all thought we had our reasons for that, I think the truth is that we were just plain nervous. All of us knew how just how much of herself Joanna had invested in this day, and all of us wanted the best for her. As we waited, Joanna looked up at me and said, “I hate this part.” I hated it, too. Joanna was like a caged lion. I wanted to turn her loose.

“You have nothing to fear here, Joanna.” I said, “Go out there and be tough.” Joanna smiled at the second part. It was the one piece of advice she didn’t need. They don’t come much tougher than Joanna Zeiger.

When the cannon went off, the women exploded forward as though they themselves had been shot from it. Joanna slotted herself as planned, and on the distant Jumbotron we saw her unmistakable stroke as she slipped comfortably into the draft. Her first task was complete.

Joanna came out of the water exactly as planned, three seconds behind the leader in 23:06. We jumped up and down as she went by, but Joanna was in another place, singularly focused on the task at hand. They were off on the bike before any of us made it to transition, and we got a report from the course that she was in the lead group of 4 women, and they were going flat out.

As I stood by the side of the road talking to Cliff English, we watched the men come in. A few minutes went by, and then we noticed the helicopter coming back around. I checked my watch, incredulous. “The women?” I asked, “Already?”

Cliff opened his eyes wide, “They’re really moving.” He said, “It’s unbelievable.”

The four leaders came through together, barely braking as they screamed into the traffic circle before us. I calculated that they had held over 25 mph. Now it would all come down to the run, and who had left enough in the tank to really hurt the others.

Joanna came around the corner by Crabby Bill’s just behind the other leaders a few moments later. She had that bounce to her stride that always shows itself when she is feeling good. She’d stuck to the plan on the swim, and been smart on the bike. She still wasn’t at her limit. It was time to unload. “Go Jo!” I shouted, “Go now!”

Joanna tells me she didn’t hear me, but she went. She opened a gap of 10 seconds. Then twenty. Then thirty. Someone called Mark. “She’s got fifty seconds on the field.” He said. Someone nearby whistled. At the end of the first lap, I clocked her at 54 seconds ahead. I got a text message a bit later. “More than a minute! Can she really do this?!”

I’d already known for days that Joanna was about to have the race of her life. The computer models my father and I had labored over predicted it, and her performances in training had confirmed it. She had nailed every workout, every time, for months. As we were ushered into the waiting area behind the finishing line, I watched her on the Jumbotron and couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Is the finish clock right?” Karen Zeiger asked me.

“No.” Someone said, “It’s two minutes ahead because the men started earlier.”

Bob and I looked at each other. He was calm in the midst of the mayhem going on around us. “What’s the course record?” he inquired with a physician’s detachment, as though he was asking me to report a patient’s blood count.

Joanna wasn’t just going to win. She wasn’t just going to PR. She wasn’t just going to set a course record. It was going to be a new world record, and by a lot. “I knew she was going to have the race of her life.” I said to her folks, “But I’d be lying if I told you I knew she had this under the hood.”

My phone began buzzing nonstop with a stream of text messages and email. Ironman Pro Mark Van Akkeren, “GO JZ GO GIRL GO!!!!!!!!!!!” David Tilbury-Davis of PhysFarm UK, “Watching the live feed! GO JZ!” One of my athletes up north, “SHE’S KILLING IT! SHE’S TOTALLY KILLING IT!”

I looked on as she came across the bridge. She never broke stride. You could have set your watch to it. It was like watching Paula Radcliffe smash the world record in Chicago, or seeing Lance Armstrong lay waste to the field on the slopes of Alpe D’Huez, or Muhammed Ali feint left and deliver what he called the “anchor punch” that laid out Liston in four one-hundredths of a second. I suddenly realized I was bearing witness to something extraordinary: the very best of the best, at the very top of her game, doing exactly what she was made for.

Joanna had forgotten to start her watch, but as she came into the finishing chute, she saw the race clock and realized what she had done. She threw her arms up in the air wildly. There was no smiling on the inside this time; it was from ear to ear. It was joy, and relief, and satisfaction in having created that perfect storm. It was the fruition of years in the sport and believing in herself when things seemed awful. I like to think it was also the answer to every Internet critic and armchair athlete who’d ever questioned her potential when she was down.

The crowd went berserk as she hit the tape. 4:02:49. A new world record. As the melee of cheering, tears, confetti, camera shutters and hugging ensued, I stood back and just watched. I wanted to remember every second of it. “Thank you.” Joanna said to me, “Thank you for everything.”

“You did it, Jo,” I said, “You totally did it. I knew you could.”

Over the time we have worked together, I’d like to think I have helped Joanna Zeiger come to a slightly different understanding about the best way to train. However, I believe Joanna has taught me something much more valuable about desire, courage and class. On November 8th in Clearwater, I witnessed a triumph over the intrinsic frailty of the human condition; a person who showed us what is possible when you combine rare talent, a supreme work ethic and an uncommon force of will. It is a lesson we could all stand to learn.

CONSULTING

We train world champions, and you.

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PhysFarm provides specialist consulting services to help you build or improve your sports performance analytics platform. Contact Dr. Skiba at coachphil@physfarm.com for details. 

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